Harry Potter and the Cloning Machine
by Heather Goldbug
Summary: Harry and his crew find a cloning machine that is cloning...hehe, read it to find out what!


**A/N: This was my first fanfic! All characters belong to J.K. Rowling etc.  
**

  
  
  
*~*Harry Potter and the Cloning Machine*~*  


  
  
"I want to go visit Moaning Myrtle" said Ron.  
Two seconds later, when Hermione realized what he had said, a fork dropped. "You what?"  
"I-you heard me."  
Harry now realized what Ron had said. "Are you crazy? Myrtle is a huge complainer!"  
"Well," said Ron, "I know that but-" He was cut off.  
"Do you expect us to go with you? Because we won't go 'visit' Moaning Myrtle." It was Hermione again.  
"-But it might help her to feel better. I'm going to bring my homework. Maybe she can help me."  
"But that's cheating!" Hermione protested.  
"Still," Ron continued, "she might have been like Hermione, misses doing homework, maybe she'd love to look up some stuff for me. You never know."  
"Well, all right, but I think we should" Harry dropped his voice. "the map."  
"Map?" said a familiar voice. "What map? Potter, I think you have something you're not telling us about." It was Malfoy and his sidekicks, Crabbe and Goyle.  
"Did I say map? I think you misunderstood, Malfoy. I said cap, and it's none of your business what Gryffindor students do. You're a Slytherin, remember?"  
"Of course I remember," Malfoy hissed, "and I'm proud of it. And I'm going to find out what your special 'cap' does. I'm following you, Potter. You'd better be careful."  
"Or what? You tell Snape that I have a hat that I'm bringing to the library? I'm sure he'll be very interested in that. And you better keep to your own table, or they might pick someone else to be their drama king."  
Malfoy and his sidekicks, who did whatever he did, went back to their own table. He contented himself by telling what he had just heard. "I bet they all have these...caps..." said a Slytherin girl.  
"Are you out of your mind? Weasley have a hat? Hahaha." Malfoy now placed his shoe on his head. "Hi, my name is Ron Weasley. This year, along with a sweater, my mom's going to make me a hat so I don't have to use my shoe." The Slytherins all snickered at this point. "You should know by now that the Weasley's don't have enough money to buy a used sock." He nodded sympathetically and called out "It's okay, Ron, you can use my old ones" The table erupted in laughter.  
  
  


*****  


  
  
  
"We have a whole hour to ourselves now," said Hermione. "We might as well go now."  
"OK, I agree. Now's as good a time as any other." Said Harry. "Let's go get it and then we'll go." They headed toward the Gryffindor common room, and then up to Ron and Harry's dormitory. They picked up the map. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" and located Malfoy, Snape, Mrs. Norris, and Filch. None of them would be in their way. They erased the map, ("Mischief managed") then headed toward Myrtle's bathroom. On the way there they saw Mrs. Norris.  
"Oh, hello," said Hermione, as if the cat would talk back any moment. "We're heading off to the library to study." She must've believed them because she kept going. Two minutes later, they ran into her again. "How'd you get over here? I told you we're going to the library!" Mrs. Norris gave them a confused look and kept going. Two more minutes of walking and they ran into her again. "Now really, that's enough! What's wrong with going to the library?" The cat, again, gave them a confused look, and walked on.  
"Really, we can't be running into Mrs., Norris every two minutes." Said Ron. "let's check the map again." They checked the map, where it showed the tiny dot that was Mrs. Norris asleep in the library. "Well, I guess we have to go to the library, if she's waiting for us, but I think we may be needing the map, so don't erase it." They walked toward the library and again saw the cat. Ron went of his rocker. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, MRS. NORRIS? I THOUGHT YOU JUST WENT THAT WAY!!!" He pointed the way she had gone. she stood there, utterly confused, just like Harry and Hermione did. Finally Harry got enough sense back to pull out the map. It still showed Mrs. Norris in the library, so apparently either the map was lying or this wasn't Mrs. Norris.  
"Hermione, you're good with cats. Tell the cat to follow us." Said Harry.  
"Follow us? What good will that do?"  
"To the library. To see if Mrs. Norris is there. That way we can tell if this is Mrs. Norris or not."  
"OK, follow us, kitty kitty kitty. Come're, kitty kitty. That's a good kitty. "She had the cat following her now. They all headed to the library.  
As they walk into the library, they see Mrs. Norris, just where the map said she was. "I think we should ask Filch who's cat this is." Said Hermione.  
"Ask Filch? Are you nuts? He would probably say that we've been snooping around or something. That's what he says about everything." Ron said a bit too loud for Mrs. Pince, who said "Quiet. This is the library. Be calm, children"  
As they walked out of the library, Hermione got an idea. "Let's go to Filch's office, if he's not there!"  
"What? Filch's office? why would we want to go there?"  
"I don't know, it seems like a logical place to go when there's more than one Mrs. Norris. I mean, she is his cat."  
"Well, all right, but I don't like Filch's office. I don't see why we can't go back to the Gryffindor tower." Said Harry. They started walking to Filch's office. Every two minutes, Hermione would say, "Check the map. We want to make sure Filch doesn't see us sneaking into his office. He gives you detention for everything."  
"That's true" muttered Harry.  
They walked into Filch's office, still being followed by the cat, whoever it was. The cat walked into a closet and came out again. Hermione told the cat that it could leave if it wanted to, so it did. "I don't think there's anything here. What did you expect to find anyway?" Said Ron. Then the cat, whoever it was, came out of the closet. "Wait. You came out of that closet 5 minutes ago. Something is fishy around here."  
"Yeah, I agree. It sure does smell like fish. I'll bet he feeds Mrs. Norris tuna."  
"I meant fishy as - well - you're right. It does smell like fish here. But where did that cat come from?"  
"The closet."  
"Duh. I think we should check it out." Harry and Hermione tried to follow Ron into the closet but they couldn't fit, so Ron told them he would search it and tell them what was in there. "Filch's coat...his shoes...yuck they stink...an umbrella...a something-or-other which I can't identify...coat hang-"  
He was cut off by Hermione. "Don't be silly. Isn't it obvious that the something-or-other is a clue to our mystery? I mean, whatever it is we wanted to find, I bet that something-or-other is it."  
"It's kinda heavy, do you think you could help me pull it out, Harry?"  
"I'll try" Replied Harry, but before he got a chance, Hermione had whipped out her wand and said "Mobiliarbus" which made the something-or-other raise a few inches off the ground, come over to Hermione, and landed back on the ground. "Don't touch it!" She hissed. "I need to try to figure out what it is." It had two poles, about 6 feet tall, with about 2 feet in between them. Hermione walked around one pole, then around the other. "I don't know what it is." She said. This is very uncommon, for Hermione to not know what something is.  
Then, something very strange happened. The machine started whirring, then, slowly, out of the machine came a blob. Then it started to look human, then like a girl, then it looked just like Hermione. Just as it stepped out from between the bars, another one slowly appeared. "I hope it doesn't do this forever." Ron muttered. They had all completely forgotten about Moaning Myrtle. Out of the machine stepped the 2nd thing that looked like Hermione. The machine stopped whirring. "Let's get out of here!" Said Ron, Then "Check the map."  
Harry pulled out the map and looked at it. "Hermione!" He almost screamed, "Filch's headed this way! Quick! Put the thing back in the closet!" But by the time he had finished, Hermione had already moved it there, grabbed the hands of the things that looked like her and started to run. Ron and Harry followed.  
As soon as they were far away enough for Filch not to catch them, Hermione let the things' hands' go. They walked off, each their own way. Then, as if she had just realized something, she chased after one, grabbed it's hand, ran back, instructed Ron to hold "her", and rushed off to get the other one.  
"Why do you want these?" Harry asked. "We don't really need more than one Hermione."  
"We don't need them. We just can't let anybody else find them!" Hermione said. "Imagine if I had left one of them in Filch's office! He would think it was me!"  
"Yeah, but he'd give it detention, not you."  
"He'd give whichever one of us he could find at detention time detention. They are going to be a lot of trouble to take care of."  
"But what was the machine? And is it still making Hermiones?" Ron asked.  
"No time for that now. We have to find a place to hide my duplicates."  
  
  
  
  


*****  


  
  
  
"Harry! Ron! Wake up, both of you! I've figured it out!"  
Ron rolled over. "mm." He said. "Figured what out? Don't answer that. I'm going back to sleep. It's too early." Harry didn't even wake up.  
Hermione opened the curtains on Ron's four-poster. "Ron, this is important! Wake up!"  
"Okay, but get out so I can get dressed." Then she woke Harry up the same way, turned, and left, but they could hear her tapping her foot outside.  
As they pulled on their clothes, Harry asked "Why are we up? It's 5 in the morning."  
"You just noticed?" Said Ron. "Hermione will drag us by our ears if we don't out there soon. I don't know what she wants us for so early." As they finished dressing, They walked out of their dormitory. "All right, now what is it that you want?"  
"It's a cloning machine!" Hermione hissed. "The two clones of me were the only ones, thank goodness. I only walked through the machine twice, so there are only two extra me's"   
"But why does Filch want a cloning machine?" Ron asked.  
"I don't know. He probably doesn't even know what it is, much less that it's making several Mrs. Norris's." Hermione answered.  
"So what do we do?" Ron asked.  
"Tell a teacher?" Hermione suggested.  
"And tell them we were snooping in Filch's closet for fun? I don't think so, Hermione."  
"Well I guess I could read about them, and figure out how to un-clone."  
"All right, but I sure hope you're fast at reading. Harry and I will go back to sleep while you find it." Hermione's mouth dropped open, as if to argue, but she closed it and went to read, deciding they would never find it anyway.  
  
  
  


*****  


  
  
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap  
"Urgh." Said Ron. "Come in Hermione. Have you found it?"  
"Of course!" Hermione muttered to herself. "I can't believe I didn't think of that."  
"Well? How do you do it?"  
"Simple: have the original of whatever was cloned walk backwards through the machine a certain number of times according to how many times it was cloned. I need to walk through it twice."  
"And Mrs. Norris? how do we find out how many of her there are, and how on earth do you get a cat to walk backwards? And how do we know which one of her is the original?" Said Harry.  
"Well," Said Hermione slowly, "we could do a charm on Mrs. Norris to get her to walk backwards. And we could just gather up all the cats and put the charm on them and get them all to walk through the machine until only one is left, and that would be Mrs. Norris."  
"And how do we catch them all?" Asked Ron.  
"Leg-locker curse." Said Hermione. "And drag them to Filch's office under the invisibility cloak so we don't get caught."  
"All right, here we go! Wait, where's my cloak? Oh, that's right, in my drawer. OK, ready. Do we all fit under this cloak still?"  
As they shuffled down hallways, picking up cats, they realized they needed to use the full-body bind curse because the cats would meow if they just stopped their legs from working. Finally, they got all the cats into Filch's office. Hermione pulled out her wand. "Backondionia" she said, and instantly all the cats were walking backwards, no long full-body bound. Every once in a while, a cat would walk (backwards) through the machine, and finally one cat disappeared. After a while, cats were disappearing more and more. Soon there were only a few, then two, than just one cat. Ron grabbed it, then realized he didn't need to and dropped it. At this point Harry pulled out his map, which he miraculously had remembered.  
"Oh no." Harry's face went pale. "Under the cloak, quick!" He whispered. "Filch. Just outside." No sooner had they all got under the cloak did Filch walk in. He picked up Mrs. Norris, ("Hello, my sweet!") looked around, and spotted the cloning machine, which was not in his closet.  
"Now how on earth could this have gotten out?" Filch wondered out loud.  
"Uh-oh" Said Ron under his breath, so Filch couldn't hear.  
"You'd better be quiet or we'll have a reason to say that!" Whispered Hermione.  
All of a sudden, Peeves poked his head in the door, and said, in his icky-sweet voice, "Having a little trouble, Filchy-Wilchy? Can Peevesie help?" and proceeded to take papers off Filch's desk and drop them in the trashcan, which of course made Filch chase Peeves into the hall and who knows where, trying to give him a detention.  
"All right, lets move the machine back." Said Harry calmly.  
"Move it back? Then it will all just happen again! What did we do all the work for, un-cloning cats if we are just going to let it happen again?" Hermione asked.  
"Well, what do you suggest we do then?"  
"Well," started Hermione, "We could..." Her voice trailed off.  
"You don't know, do you?"  
"Well, I can figure something out!" Hermione said, looking very thoughtful. Then she found a bit of parchment and a quill and some ink and began writing. When she was satisfied, this is how it looked:  
Dear Mr. Argus Filch, caretaker of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,  
Please dispose of this machine. Sell it if you'd like, it will sell for quite a bit of money. It is a cloning machine and is very dangerous. If students find out about it, they could miss your detentions by creating a clone of themself and having their friends take it to you, and the clone would get detention instead of the correct student.  
Love,   
Someone who cares  
  
  
This is what she left on the cloning machine, and then they went back to the Great Hall just in time for breakfast.


End file.
